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Disgraced former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn appeared in a Paris court Tuesday to try to ban a graphic new book by author Marcela Iacub detailing their affair, saying it was filled with lies.

In "Beauty and the Beast," due to be released on Wednesday, Argentinian-born Iacub says she had a relationship with Strauss-Kahn from January to August 2012, in the midst of the scandal over accusations he sexually assaulted a New York hotel maid the previous year.

Strauss-Kahn told the court the work was "despicable and false" and had wreaked "havoc" on his personal life. He said Iacub's aim was simply to make money and added that it targeted a man "who is already down on the ground".

Strauss-Kahn is suing Iacub and her publisher Stock for an attack on his private life and to prevent the book from going on sale.

THe former finance minister, who has called the book an 'abomination' is seeking €100,000 in damages and compensation from Iacub and Stock and a similar amount from Le Nouvel Observateur, which published extracts of the book and an interview with Iacub last week.

The article in the Nouvel Obs, which included the author's depiction of DSK as a "half-man, half pig" made headlines around the world when it was published.

"Everything that is creative, artistic or beautiful with Dominique Strauss-Kahn belongs to the pig and not to the man. The man is terrible, the pig is wonderful, even if it is a pig," she told Nouvel Observateur in an interview.

Iacub said her motivation for having the affair with DSK was to do some 'field work' so she could later write a book about it. She also said she felt transformed into a "saint" who had the job of saving someone so "hated and despised".

Iacub admits that some of the sex scenes in her novel were made up, but everything about the affair was authentic.

In an open letter to the editor of Le Nouvel Observateur, DSK expressed his "disgust" at both the magazine and the author. He called the book an abomination.

Iacub's new work is the latest in a long line of books, plays, TV shows and movies on the spectacular fall from grace of a man who was once tipped to become France's next president.

The Socialist politician in December agreed a financial settlement with the hotel maid whose 2011 allegation of sexual assault forced him to resign from the International Monetary Fund.

But the silver-haired 63-year-old is still being investigated in France as part of a probe into allegations he procured prostitutes for sex parties in Europe and in Washington.